Sergey Kadinsky

The Ghosts of Homesh

July 27, 2006

Shavei Shomron, Israel: In the year that has passed since the Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria, not only has the national debate over its results remained ongoing, but appears to have intensified in light of the two front war that Israel is facing on its northern and southern frontiers.

Today, if someone wishes to visit Gush Katif, as the Jewish communities in Gaza were called, they could visit a number of temporary housing sites established throughout Israel where the former settlers now live. Many remain unemployed, some are depressed. Evidence of ruined lives and relationships devastates these people the same way that the former homes, farms, and synagogues of Gush Katif now stand in ruins. If one were to visit these ruins, one would hope that Hamas, which rules over the site of Gush Katif, provides tour guides. It would also be prudent to wear a helmet seeing that Israel has chosen to make a limited return to Gaza after a year’s worth of Qassam rockets that have been launched by Hamas from what was once Gush Katif.

In contrast, the former settlements of northern Samaria, Ganim, Kadim, Homesh, and Sanur are slightly more accessible. Though they are located in proximity to Jenin, they remain within Area C, the part of West Bank that remains under Israeli civil and military control. Especially noteworthy is Homesh, which had some of its concrete trailer homes removed to the nearby community of Shavei Shomron, and deposited on a hilltop overlooking the Nablus suburb of Deir Sharaf.

“I do not want to look at them, they bring back painful memories,” states Naomi Portnoy, who emigrated to Shavei Shomron from Ukraine six years ago. Knowing that such painful concessions may be repeated in the future, if the Ehud Olmert government remains in power, I decided to explore these ruins, and document their story, with the hope that in the future, such expulsions could be prevented.

Likely used either as guest houses or as a nursery, the empty rooms contained murals of palm trees and animals. Alongside the murals, orange and black graffiti pointed out evidence of a struggle that took place. “Peace is dead,” declared a tag in one room, with the more common “Jews do not expel Jews” painted in nearby trailers. On the floors, newspapers, magazines, and coupons from August 2005 lay undisturbed, awaiting for readers who will never return. A Russian language children’s book is evidence of a diverse community, with immigrants who lived under far worse conditions, only to be expelled once again in their new homeland. Soaps rest on sinks, shampoo bottles lie in showers, showing a hasty withdrawal, where the main concern was completing a deadline. In one room, everything is bare, except a simple tag “21-8-2005,” the day this community was erased from the map.

Shevei Shomron resident Bryna Aster has a window that faces towards the barren hilltop where these homes once stood. “We gave it up for nothing in return, and now our own future is uncertain,” she notes. Her neighbor, Aryeh Bornstein describes the half-finished homes standing alongside the trailers, “I am not going to paint you a rosy picture. People are not going to move to a community whose future is in doubt.” The homes have completed orange roof tiles, but their walls remain bare with cinder blocks, awaiting their golden Jerusalem stone facades. The concrete trailers and the unfinished homes overlook the town of Deir Sharaf, a suburb of Nablus, in plain sight of its Arab inhabitants, the same inhabitants who voted Hamas to power, and who cheer for Hezbollah in massive demonstrations. I wonder what they think when they look at these abandoned homes. Do they recognize the sacrifices that Israel continues to make for peace, or are they further encouraged to see Israel destroyed?

I left the books, furniture, and newspapers undisturbed; so that future visitors will also see the worthless sacrifice that occurred in August 2005.

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